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With potential injury always just one play away, athletic success can be the most fragile of things. Yet while many a career have been sidetracked or lost in

such premature fashion, some sports stars have used injury as a catalyst for bigger and better things.

Following a near-death car wreck in 1949, golf legend Ben Hogan bounced back and proceeded to dominate his sport like he never had before.

Formula One great Niki Lauda did precisely the same thing nearly 30 years later, winning two world championships after a life-altering crash of his own.

And, more recently, Peyton Manning has taken his game to a whole new level after neck surgery threatened his career roughly four years ago.

So, with these guys and others in mind, we’ve worked to highlight 11 sports stars who came back from injury better than ever.

While each athlete experienced different variations of success, they all thrived under similar circumstances, gaining strength in the eye of a defeat, benefiting from adversity rather than shrinking from it.